Relationship Is the Transformative Space: Living in the Not Yet

By Darryl Wooldridge

This book affirms relationship as the shared human elemental pursuit and proposes relationship as the transformative space. Wonderfully, the author asserts, it is God's intention to fulfill this intrinsic human desire in the present in all of us and universally. This desire is an often inarticulate, innate desire and pursuit to enjoy and reflect the divine image in which every human being was created. In this book, this pursuit is referred to as proleptic spiritual transformation (PrōST). That is, this book demonstrates that what is too often relegated to eternity is available now.
Relationship is the Transformative Space considers God's heart, in relationship, and its implication toward human spirituality and how this intent has been interrupted and restored. God is actively interested in the recovery of a fully expressed image in humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Feb 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781498280426

Darryl Wooldridge

Darryl Wooldridge is an affirming minister. He holds a PhD in theology. The Reverend Dr. Wooldridge openly examines traditional Christian and philosophical assumptions, tears at icons and non-inclusive interpretations, and represents an open process that is inclined to change opinion or "truth" as a better understanding emerges. He spent several years in an international organization examining potential ordinands, a time in men's prison ministry, founded DeepLight Ministries, published journal articles, wrote essays, and drafted two novels.

Book preview

9781498280419.kindle.jpg

Relationship Is the Transformative Space

Living in the Not Yet

Darryl Wooldridge

26528.png

Relationship is The Transformative Space

Living in the Not Yet

Copyright © 2016 Darryl Wooldridge. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn 13: 978-1-4982-8041-9

hardcover isbn 13: 978-1-4982-8043-3

eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-8042-6

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 02/14/2017

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: God’s Heart

Chapter 3: Transforming-Salvation

Chapter 4: Devices in the Unveiling

Chapter 5: Enculturation and Presuppositions

Chapter 6: Reflecting God’s Glory

Chapter 7: Summary and Conclusions

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

There have been a number of people to whom I am greatly indebted that have lovingly enabled the research and writing necessary to produce this book. First, is my family that inspires me and drives me to excellence: My wife, Ruth, whose deep love, support, dialogue, and patience have made room for the necessary focus of such a challenge as this. Loving thanks to my children, grandchildren, and siblings, who bring me sustaining joy, and inspiration. A special note of gratitude to my doctoral advisors, professors Dr. Lioy and Dr. Vorster, and Jessica Bratt (2005), who graciously allowed me to cite her paper, Wolfhart Pannenberg: Imago Dei as Gift and Destiny.

There are many instructors in my life, both in formal and informal settings, some of whom I have only met in books and journals and debated with in those pages, and from whom I have learned a great deal. Some have been the most unassuming members of society. Others have been the famous, lauded, and acclaimed that have taught and advised me from university, lectern, pulpit, history, and face-to-face consult and encouragement. The incidents of my life, both trials and mercies, have taught me deeply and enriched me beyond measure. Whatever small light I may have been able to shine in this work is of God’s exceeding mercy and grace that have nurtured me and made me capable. Finally, I offer deep gratitude to the excellent team of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

1

Introduction

There have been numerous and varied records of the human pursuit for God as first shown by the discovery of the scrawls of a half-animal-half-human in a cave of Dordogne, France, from the Paleolithic Age, dated about 30,000 years ago.¹ However, at the extreme, Harrod has argued that the first event may go back over 2,000,000 years.² And at the opposite extreme, Christian fundamentalism has argued against any evolutionary account of creation and of the first humans for a young earth (10,000–20,000 years) created with a built-in age of 4.5 billion years.³ Although Genesis does not portray history in the sense of modern methodologies, the scientific evidence, rightly interpreted, does not conflict with biblical accounts and presents God-directed and precise biological evolution coming out of a less-than-idyllic swirl as the most viable explanation.⁴ However, whether more recently or back into a nascent evolutionary forming, the human pursuit for God has reached across time, place, and all cultures and milieus.⁵ The story of this search for God has been a particularly intense, violent, and lusty quest that, at times, is told and experienced in often-conflicting perspectives.

Mystics and contemplatives variously claim that the Judeo-Christian God in particular is experienced in both presence and absence and sought in positive (cataphatic) expression and the negative (apophatic) expression.⁶ These differences of pursuit are not solely academic distinctions. Their paradigms portend existential outcomes. The nature of the Christian relationship with God directs or even determines any transformative affect of that relationship upon the life of the seeker, the initiate, and the seasoned disciple as we pursue or stammer toward spiritual transformation.

The new academic discipline spirituality probably began in France during the first half of the twentieth century and referred to a kind of liberation. Both ascetics and mystical theology seem to imply excessive inflexible and elitist concepts of divine activity. This prior concept is overwrought with distinctions between human nature and God’s grace. Spirituality attempts to address a multifaceted range of human experience.⁷

More particularly, I propose spirituality or the lived experience of spirituality as one’s conscious participation in life synthesis through an experiential integration of self-transcendence toward ultimate value.⁸ But more accessibly, spiritual transformation mainly points to a basic change in the place or character of the sacred as life’s significance.⁹ Integration of our lives into the sacred is a change in spiritual quality, vivacity, function, character, or condition from one experiential level to another that may have collateral affects on soul, body, and creation. Such transformation shall alter our relationship with others as well as God. Also note that transformation is used and explored throughout this book except where the word formation is required for explanatory reasons. Although the terms ascetical and mystical are also used, my preference for the forms of spiritual—a term more focused on the human experience, especially as it relates to God—is also found throughout.

Admittedly, one may call the spiritual, transformation process sanctification, right and moral living, the Spirit-filled life, progressive theōsis, divinization, deification, divine filiation, or some other appellation to spiritual transformation. The problem we examine here is not the naming of the process or its state but rather the proposed process and state and who is included in what I shall mostly refer to herein as proleptic, spiritual transformation (PrōST). That is, by proleptic, I am indicating a spiritual transformation usually thought reserved for the eschaton as anachronistically enjoyed, to a great measure, in the present.

In addition to the examples that we can find in Scripture (e.g., Gen 2:7–9; Song; Mark 9:2–8; Gal 2:20; 2 Cor 3:16–18; 12:2–4; 1 Thess 5:12–26; 2 Pet 1:4; 1 John 3:2), there are extrabiblical spiritual writings and authors, too numerous to list here. These sources can be found starting in the first century CE onward (e.g., First Epistle of Clement, Clement; The Shepherd of Hermas, Anon; The Cloud of Unknowing, Anon; The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence; The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis) through to present times (e.g., Streams of Living Water, Foster; The Divine Conspiracy, Willard; The Wound of Knowledge, Williams; Subversive Spirituality, Peterson; The Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen).

These writings exemplify, discuss, debate, and instruct on what we can experience of the spiritual and of God. Like Celebration of Discipline, by Foster, these writings often present various methods and disciplines intended to facilitate a way to these spiritual experiences and encounters with God. The extent of experienced spiritual transformation ranges from initiation to deification or divinization (Gk. theōsis). Here, we generally mean, by such terms (deification, divinization, and theōsis), a real knowledge of God and actual participation in God’s divine life.¹⁰ Rarely is deification or divinization spoken of in the fully developed, superlative meaning as a possibility for the present space-time continuum before eternity is entered.

The scholastic position, represented here by Thomas Aquinas,¹¹ speaks about partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature . . . by a participated likeness. Although, my position posits a scholastic similarity (at least as held by Thomas) to Orthodoxy,¹² the route and methods may differ. We will set aside the controversies of Orthodox practices of Hesychasm, and its variants while holding to the desired possibility of direct experiential fellowship with God by which measures we can enjoy deification, as Paul says from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18).

From a Reformed position, Carl Mosser¹³ finds deification in both Luther and Calvin (particularly 2 Peter). Canlis¹⁴ looks to Calvin and Irenaeus and argues that Irenaeus’s anachronistic sense of deification is helpful in removing any competitive relationship between humans and the Creator. Although admittedly "deconstructive concepts intended to destroy gnostic radical incompatibility [laid] between heaven and earth" this deification makes us more like God in fellowship (Gk. koinōnia) or Triune, perichoretic relationship with God in one another (Gk. perichōrēsis), adoption presented as proof of such a deification.¹⁵ Let’s be clear, deification, here, is not in any way meant as receiving God’s essence (incommunicable), but rather only God’s communicable attributes.¹⁶

While agreeing with Canlis¹⁷ that deification is a matter of fellowship and relationship (Gk. koinōnia) with God, to be direct and clear, in this, I hold most closely to an Orthodox position that the image breathed (Gen 1:26; 2:7) into humans was the beginning, inviolate deposit of those communicable divine energies or nature of God ultimately resulting in deification.¹⁸ Thus, the transformation spoken of here is a coming into a fuller expression of that which is communicable, by removing the dross caused in the fall and protracted willful acts on display throughout human history, that opens one to fellowship or koinōnia. It is God’s communicable nature [extending] to the whole human makeup, not excepting the ‘cloak of skin’ . . . penetrated by deifying grace . . . what God is by nature.¹⁹ Grace is within the realm of deification in perfect conformity with God. Thereby, as we discuss below, transformation is removing that which may obscure, the imago Dei (God’s image) from being most fully expressed in humans, without limit to one particular human facet but the whole of human existence.²⁰ It contains an ontological (existence or reality) eventuality of full, unhindered, and expressed imago Dei as deification in relationship and expression not incommunicable divine essence.

Among the main Christian bodies, the Orthodox Church (followed by elements of the Catholic Church) has been the most forthcoming in offering a theology and model of full-orbed spiritual transformation toward deification or divinization. The Orthodox Church, in fact, has been unequivocally explicit to call such a potential spiritual transformation deification or divinization. The beginning of this process, according to the Orthodox Church, is available today, and yet they do not hold out the expectation for deification or divinization for the main population of Christians before eternity. It seems, to me, that Orthodox theologians are united in their belief that human culminating deification is not obtained until the eschaton with the so-called third birth, but that a very clear and firm beginning should distinguish all Christians presently.²¹ The church fathers and mothers, both early and later, have variously spoken of these experiences of God. Both the Orthodox Church and Catholic Church have owned these persons and mystical approaches in differing manners and degrees.²² However, no distinction is made by me of the various Orthodox and Catholic churches except where it is pertinent to the discussion.

Whoever might claim ownership, the early church fathers (e.g., Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria) spoke of deification.²³ This language better harmonizes with Orthodox theology. As Steeves²⁴ points out, in the final analysis, within the Byzantine period, Orthodoxy’s considerable mysticism, intuition, and amalgamation was firmly fixed. This was in sharp contrast to the West’s philosophical, scholastic, and forensic design.²⁵ History also records a number of smaller bodies of Christians that have reached for this glory (2 Cor 3:16–18). Among them are Friends of God, Brethren of the Common Life, Quietists, Quakers, Pietists, and Morovians.²⁶

Where theōsis, deification, and divinization are not explicitly addressed by these early disciples and mystics, union with God is proposed by such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross.²⁷ Hero mystics of the Orthodox Church, such as St. Anthony the Great, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Macrina (St. Gregory of Nyssa’s sister), St. Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory of Palamas all left the church with examples of the spiritual life. However, their ranks are suspiciously lacking in the writings of women,²⁸ while the Catholic tradition has a number of women who left mystical writings for posterity. Examples of female Catholic writing mystics are Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Liseux. The Orthodox Church and, to a less-defined degree, the Catholic Church are the two largest bodies that have continued with these beliefs, in varying modes.

In more recent times, but in no particular order, some representative mystics or contemplatives that have shaped much of the present spiritual, transformational thought and expectations are the writings of Madame Guyon, William Law, John Wesley, Evelyn Underhill, Andrew Murray, Ruth Paxon, Watchman Nee, Simone Weil, Dallas Willard, Jacob Böhme, Richard Foster, Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths from the Benedictines, and Mother Gavriellia Papaiannis from the Orthodox. Clearly, these representatives stand on the shoulders of the Scriptures, the early church fathers and mothers, and those mystics and seekers who have come before.²⁹ A few of these pioneers have already been cited above and others are cited within these pages.

Discussions about the extent of spiritual transformation range from the anemic to full-orbed experience. The church fathers and mothers have variously spoken of these experiences of God. Admittedly, the accusation of heterodoxy, aberrance, and even heresy sometimes trouble the words of these early innovators.³⁰

Although there is a rich and long history of mystics, seekers, and common people simply desirous of the divine, there is no unified, broadly accepted understanding of spirituality. What spiritual conditions or attributes of God are communicably and fully available to humans has not been clearly and thoroughly presented and made available in Christian literature. More specifically, there does not seem to be much, if anything, addressing proleptic spirituality transformation (PrōST). That is, what of the not-yet, if any, of these communicable conditions and attributes are available now for humanity to enjoy of God’s restorative and progressive work of spiritual transformation.

Humans were originally created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26–27), which creation in God’s image joined with the natural world and expressed in both the immaterial and material worlds, that both ontologically and functionally makes them different than the animals of creation.³¹ God’s image (Heb. tselem) does not consist in man’s body which was formed from earthly matter, but in his spiritual, intellectual, moral likeness to God from whom [humanity’s] animating breath came.³² Additionally, Hamilton goes on to say that likeness (Heb. dĕmuwth) may amplify image and establish humans as fully representational of God.³³ Scripture references image and likeness, image alone, and likeness alone. Despite the distinctions that might be found in these terms and the comparisons that can be made, I, while briefly discussing some considerations, do not defend any distinctions, comparisons, differences, or arguments about these words in any part or combination. Such consideration would be a distraction from our purposes and unnecessary to our goals. Neither do I enter the debate of whether is or in the image is the correct rendering except to say that the human being both is the imago Dei and in the imago Dei however found among these pages.

Although there seem to be some representational elements in image, for example, functional dominion over the earth as consequence of being God’s vice regents, these elements fail to address either the substantive or the relational theories of image. That is, as addressed below, what, if any, is the structural, essential, spiritual sameness, or possession of humans as God’s image (substantive)? Moreover, what is the relationship of humans to God and creation in order to reflect God’s image to God and creation in those relationships (relational)?³⁴

The prior, present, and future condition of humanity is a labyrinth difficult to navigate and derive any coherent systematic. Yet the Scriptures seem to reveal God’s desire for some large measure of relationship with and image bearing from God’s creatures. A primary question continues to surface regarding the extent of that relationship and image and the effects of that relationship and image upon the heart of God and the condition of humanity and creation. Again, what of the not-yet, if any, of God’s communicable conditions and attributes are available now for humanity to enjoy of God’s restorative and progressive work of spiritual transformation? Among the many secondary questions that can be asked regarding proleptic spiritual transformation (PrōST), the following shall be considered:

™ What does God’s heart, in relationship, imply toward an image-bearing human spiritually, and what, if any, are the implications on this from the Edenic fall?

™ In what measure is God actively interested in the recovery of God’s image in humanity as the remedy to the spiritual effects of the fall and in PrōST?

™ What are the means by which God reveals or unveils God’s heart, truth, and intents toward creation and humanity in particular in the plan of spiritual recovery/PrōST?

™ What are the transformative and soteriological implications of PrōST?

™ What are the possibilities, if any, to develop a unified theory regarding PrōST from the conclusions of this study?

Our primary aim is to investigate whether individuals must wait for the afterlife to have purification and spiritual transformation fully or largely worked out—that is, the possible opportunity to greatly work out [one’s transformation] with fear and trembling [now] (Phil 2:12–13). This book investigates whether God’s economy (Gk. oikonomia) or administration includes provisions for a present enjoyment of the imago Dei in transformation as inclusive of the life of Christ, and whether (to what degree) this transformation, as the imago Dei, is to be reflected and represented by humans in time and in relation to God and creation.

Our central theoretical argument is that humans were originally created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26–27); however, the enjoyment and expression, not the essence, of this imago Dei has been greatly blemished, marred, and damaged by a God-defying willfulness of humanity (Gen 2:16; 3). Despite this rebellion, God desires a full restoration of the enjoyment and expression of his image. God has not forgotten this intent that humans would express God in this life as the Divine image (Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18; Eph 1:11; Col 2:13; 3:10; 2 Tim 1:9; 1 Pet 5:10). Moreover, I argue that imago Dei now carries something more—the God-man. God’s image in Jesus the Christ now carries the existential realities of his incarnate life toward which PrōST (Proleptic Spiritual Transformation) drives in the now (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:5). We will reexamine the conventional partitioning of the now and not-yet for a potential new balance and paradigm in expressed PrōST toward imago Dei.

I shall limit our arguments to Christian traditions and expressions of faith,³⁵ and yet transversely include pluralistic and interdisciplinary fields as necessary to the subject.³⁶ However, a full-orbed and exhaustive inclusion of multiple scientific disciplines is outside the scope and intent of these pages. Yet, an enlarged approach is employed as informing disciplines weigh in on the concerns of this book. Thereby, we shall investigate a wide contextual perspective and draw from a broad area of Christian, spiritual traditions inclusive of Western and Eastern traditions but mainly from three: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Additionally, as warranted, subcategories of the main traditions shall be thoroughly researched and consulted along with sciences such as paleoanthropology, philosophy, and cognitive disciplines.

While biblical assessment on the subject of this book is at the leading edge, extrabiblical literature was broadly read and surveyed to measure and inform that assessment as well as the aims, goals, and objectives of our investigations. We view the Bible, within this approach, from an underlying progressive or trajectory hermeneutic.³⁷ We shall review both testaments progressively unfolding God’s full revelation and intent of a transformed universe in which such allowances as divorce and slavery are done away for fidelity and freedom (Gen 1:26–27; Prov 14: 31; Matt 7:12; 10:2–9; Acts 17:26; Gal 3:28; Phil 8:1–21);³⁸ where an eye for an eye gives way to turning the other cheek (Matt 5:39); where only loving one’s clan gives way to also loving one’s enemies and the world at large (Matt 5:4; 1 John 4:16).

The hermeneutic utilized in this study does not abandon the existential realities or position of the active interpreter.³⁹ This research employs an eclectic hermeneutic and thereby leverages various approaches into an eclectic postfoundationalism. For ease this broad and open approach is referred to as an eclectic hermeneutic, in which multiple interpretive techniques and principles are employed as appropriate. This often invites disparate elements of exegesis such as allusions, authorial style and leanings, genre, and earlier scriptural assumptions as well as history, grammar, and the sciences.

Primary sources are consulted wherever possible. Especially biblical texts, historically significant periods, modern sources, and sciences are transversely⁴⁰ consulted to best discern voices pertinent to the discussion. As in utilizing different modes of transportation as conditions demand, this study moves within this eclectic hermeneutic that is inclusive of postmodern interpretations.

Moreover, a postfoundational approach holds place seeking defensible rational to intersect transversally with theological arguments . . . [as to] what it might mean to talk about human uniqueness today.⁴¹ More precisely, using the thought of Badiou,⁴² in which he places the law of the future anterior . . . [from which] a post-evental truth is being deployed, a statement is veridical. That is, it is possible to determine the truth of the present, although a passing, post-evental truth. This postfoundationalism allows for communal and historical conditioning while holding that one can work and reach beyond such preconditioning of culture, prior and received knowledge, and human insularity.

Although I presume there is objective reality to be known and understood (foundationalism), a postfoundational-postmodern theological condition is applied as the materials indicate the need for deconstructing or unpeeling the layers obscuring seeing. This assists us in looking past the obvious, delivered truth to the underlying plurality, discontinuity, and complexity of the un-deconstructible.⁴³ This approach mines and deconstructs meaning utilizing and transversing interdisciplinary constructs. Although I am not arguing for or defending deconstruction, here it assists and supports the eclectic hermeneutics of this study as an interpretive approach as the need presents.

The approach is not a mixture or even a combinant. It is the tension between memory, faithfulness, preservation to what has been given and yet variegated, something original, and a departure from the prior.⁴⁴ In this "deconstruction is treated as an hermeneutic of the kingdom of God" as an approach to interpretation that assists in seeing the prophetic spirit of the unpredictable and sometimes dissonant outsider—Jesus—who took a stand with the marginalized, disenfranchised, and downtrodden.⁴⁵

Moreover, deconstruction occasionally supports this study by affirming but without being self-certain and positive. Here I do not use it as a position in opposition to Christianity or for that matter any other established or proofed belief or practice. Deconstruction is a disquieting tool by which we can examine a stance or belief, about how not to hold too strongly any given stance or belief. It presses against seeing or holding a stance or belief as decided with too much complacency and certainty, and rather encourages permitting oneself to be held.⁴⁶

I have intended that postfoundationalism enfold deconstructive principles and the eclectic hermeneutic described above to provide space in which an understanding of proleptic spiritual transformation (PrōST) is best understood and presented.

™ Utilizing an eclectic hermeneutic, research and gain an understanding of what God’s heart, in relationship, implies toward human spirituality, and what, if any, are the implications on this from the Edenic fall.

™ Utilizing an eclectic hermeneutic, research and gain an understanding of God’s interest in recovery of his image in humanity and PrōST as the remedy to the spiritual effects of the fall.

™ Utilizing an eclectic hermeneutic, research and gain an understanding of the means by which God reveals or unveils God’s heart, truth, and intents toward creation and humanity in particular in the plan of spiritual recovery and PrōST.

™ Utilizing an eclectic hermeneutic, research and gain an understanding of the transformative and soteriological implications of PrōST.

™ Utilizing an eclectic hermeneutic, research and gain an understanding for the conclusions of this study and whether they imply a unified theory regarding PrōST.

1. Leroi-Gourhan and Michelson, Religion of the Caves,

6

–

17

.

2. Harrod, Two Million Years Ago,

4

–

7

.

3. Grudem, Systematic Theology,

295

–

97

,

304

–

6

.

4. Lioy, Evolutionary Creation,

25

–

26

,

44

,

85

.

5. Cady, Loosening the Category,

23

–

25

.

6. McGinn, Foundations of Mysticism, xviii.

7. Endean, Spirituality and Theology,

74

.

8. Schneiders, Christian Spirituality,

1

.

9. Pargament, Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy,

21

.

10. Meyendorff, Liturgy and Spirituality,

350

11. Aquinas, Summa Theologia,

1140

.

12. Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas,

11

,

27

–

28

,

225

.

13. Mosser, Greatest Possible Blessing,

38

–

40

.

14. Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder,

188

.

15. Ibid.,

190

,

237

.

16. Kärkkäinen, One with God,

30

–

31

.

17. Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder,

236

.

18. Lossky, Image,

98

,

110

; Mantzaridis, Deification of Man,

15

.

19. Lossky, Image,

139

.

20. Mantzaridis, Deification of Man,

16

.

21. Clendenin, Partakers of Divinity,

377

.

22. Campbell, Asceticism; McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism,

149

–

57;

Zizioulas, Early Christian Community,

38

–

40

,

116

–

19

.

23. McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism,

397

.

24. Steeves, Othodox Tradition,

806

–

8

.

25. Ibid.,

809

.

26. Cairns, Christianity through the Centuries,

249

–

50

,

378

–

82

.

27. McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism,

427

–

29

.

28. Ashbrook-Harvey, email to Wooldridge about women mystics in the Middle Ages.

29. Chan, Spiritual Theology,

82

–

83

,

103

–

9

,

190

; Foster and Griffin, Spiritual Classics, xi–xiv; Willard, Divine Conspiracy,

271

–

73

.

30. McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism,

481

,

490

,

511

–

12

.

31. Lioy, Evolutionary Creation,

86

,

89

.

32. Harris et al., Theological Wordbook, s.v. dĕmuwth.

33. Ibid., s.v. tselem.

34. Herzfeld, Imago Dei,

363

.

35. Schneiders, Christian Spirituality,

1

.

36. Van Huyssteen, Alone in the World?,

112

,

159

–

60

,

242

.

37. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals,

30

–

34

.

38. Lioy, Evolutionary Creation,

55

.

39. Palmer, Postmodern Hermeneutics,

60

.

40. Van Huyssteen, Alone in the World?,

12

,

164

,

242

.

41. Ibid.,

164

.

42. Badiou, Being and Event,

401

.

43. Vanhoozer, Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity,

4

–

5

,

11

,

13

,

17

.

44. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell,

6

.

45. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?,

26

.

46. Ibid.,

55

–

56

.

2

God’s Heart

Prefatory

To ensure clarity and coherency of the intent of this work and the present chapter in particular, I offer the following. The prior chapter was introductory in scope and briefly laid out the book’s background and problem, the aims and objectives in pursuing the intended area of discussion, the study’s theoretical argument, and the means and methods of pursuit. The current chapter sets forth foundational considerations on which the following chapters build. In this chapter I speak to the ineffaceable drive within humans to find God. It is a reciprocated drive—a response to God who first sought and continues to seek humans—a correlate and concomitant seeking in response to God. Although surely not the final word, in this chapter we discuss God as Spirit and spiritual, by whom human beings have been created as imago Dei (God’s image), showing God’s heart as toward his creation and humans most especially.

A World in Relationship

I will also discuss here the incredible reality that humans are destined to join the perichoretic relationship that God has enjoyed from eternity past. Particularly, in his ascension and glory, Jesus sent the Spirit of adoption into creation so that human creation might enter this same perichoretic relationship with God.⁴⁷

In support, and although narrowly presented, a full development and defense of possible worlds and the etiology of evil is beyond the scope and my intent for this chapter or these pages in the main. I discuss certain conjectures ostensibly founded as key to the intent and subject of this study in affecting proleptic spiritual transformation (PrōST). For one, although human striving fails, and the finality of death is assured, God has created a world that cannot be defeated from God’s purposes and intents.⁴⁸ The creation into which humans have been placed is good and in truth the best possible world in God’s sovereign, omniscient, and omni-benevolent desire.⁴⁹ It is intended and suited for relationship with God.

Leibniz⁵⁰ clarifies that God is at full liberty and free to use his will and power without hindrance or compulsion by outside forces or wills. God is free in always being self-led toward what is good and right. God is without restriction or displeasure in prosecuting his will. In this all humans were created as God purposed in display of his wisdom and benevolence to best realize this wisdom and will. This need of God, in free will, is without imperfection as is the wrath of God. However, I do not hold to a Leibniz Lapse that God could have created any possible world he might have wished.⁵¹ If humans are to have free will, a necessity of my argument, then they may, unlike God, by their free-actions, introduce evil, pain, and suffering.

The Anthropomorphic God

We will examine imago Dei further as it particularly relates to a foundational understanding to the main subject of this work, that is, the imago Dei now carries something more—the God-man. God’s image in Jesus the Christ (imago Christi) now carries the existential realities of his incarnate life toward which PrōST (Proleptic Spiritual Transformation) drives in the now (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:5). We reexamine the conventional partitioning of the now and not-yet for a potential new balance and paradigm in expressed PrōST toward imago Dei.

In order to accomplish the goal of transformation, God has put down human rebellion through the incarnation of Christ who exampled God’s heart (anthropomorphically speaking) regarding the intended life meant for humans. It is important, that we remember that wherever, in this book, human form, characteristics, attributes, behaviors, and functions are given as God’s form, characteristics, attributes, behaviors, and functions it is used as an anthropomorphic (physitheism or anthropotheism) literary devise to describe God’s condescension or accommodation in extending grace and mercy in relationship with humans. Beegle⁵² provides candid help in that the incarnational mediation of Jesus the Christ necessitates a measure of cautionary Christian anthropomorphism; for it is in this that the finite human can know something more of the infinite, incomprehensible God whose thoughts and ways are not the thoughts of his creatures. In particular, many Yahwist (or J, one of the sources of the Pentateuch [Torah]) passages are boldly anthropomorphic in expression.⁵³

The Mystery of God’s Heart

It seems presumptuous to speak as though one might know something about God’s heart. After all, God is transcendent, eternal, immortal, immutable, and invisible—the magnificent creator of the universe and the maker of heaven and earth and all their content, seen and unseen, experienced and never to be experienced. However, what is to be experienced of God is to be found in Christ as facilitated by the participation of the Spirit, who brings Christ and his benefits and through whom disciples find communion with God.⁵⁴ God, who is in unapproachable glory, is outside, above, below, before, and after space-time and yet contains space-time (Gen 1:31; Eccl 8:17; 1 John 4:12; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:16). God contains all; all is in God (Job 12:10; Dan 5:23b; Acts 17:28). God is the uncreated-creator and uncaused-cause of reality and all of its content. God sustains the entire universe by the word of his power (Col 1:17; Heb 1:3). As Anselm famously said, God is that being than which nothing greater can be conceived.⁵⁵ Yet incomprehensibly and gloriously this God, who is transcendent, is revealed in Christ Jesus (John 1:18; 6:46; 8:19; 14:7–10) in whom humans participate in communion in trinitarian immortality in the Word, by the Spirit only in relational context.⁵⁶

Although much is claimed regarding the revelations of God’s heart in creation—experiential tales by individuals and communities—God and God’s heart is at the deepest level a mystery. John Calvin⁵⁷ spoke to this mystery with poignant counsel in that the most perfect way to seek God is not to attempt to satiate one’s curiosity by attempting to probe and investigate God’s essence but rather to adore and meditate God as can be seen in his great works. It is by these works that God is close and known to his children, and by which he communes with his creatures.⁵⁸ Experience of God is variously further discussed below and throughout these pages along with other modes of God’s expression.

Not only can God’s heart be seen in his works, but as further considered below, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures display the heart of God and help derive God’s desires (Ps 19:1; 50:6; 144:6; Rom 1:19–20). The anthropological personifications used in Scripture to describe God, although only partial and incomplete, are adequate to the task of revelation for human understanding (2 Tim 3:15–17). More pointedly, in the hands of the Yahwist, they are the boldest anthropomorphisms and necessary to God’s, self-revelation.⁵⁹ God’s heart is laid open in the histories, narratives, poetry, psalms, parables, allegories, and directives of Hebrew and Christian canon and deuterocanonical writings.

As testified by these writings, God determined to make known to humans the mystery of his will which serves God’s purpose (Eph 1:7–10; 3:3). This mystery (Gk. mustérion) indicates that God’s will, in plan, was hidden. God’s self-revelation opens his heart to human knowledge and experience. Moreover, God’s self-revelation now makes possible that we might join and serve God’s heart-desire in fulfilling God’s will and plan.⁶⁰

The theory and theology of an unknowable God, a God that is exclusively transcendent, ineffable and transcategorial, meaning beyond the range of our human systems of concepts or mental categories,⁶¹ is briefly discussed in chapter 4 below. Nevertheless, there is a vast list that can be numbered regarding the revelation of God’s heart in Scripture and following that God is to some measure and at some level knowable. The evidential testimony to God’s heart as found in Scripture is indeed, a priori, multitudinous. Nonetheless, my intent and the subject are specific to spiritual transformation and the possibility of proleptic, spiritual reality. God’s heart specifically regarding this subject graciously presents as seminal, knowable, vital, and central. It is the focus of this discussion.

Accomodatio

God accommodates himself to humans, the human situation, and human understanding often using anthropological language and analogy in order to reach humans within our own milieu and needs. Although